Rossiter unveils third store in Leominster

Rossiter Books is opening a third store in Leominster, Herefordshire.

Husband-and-wife team Andy and Victoria Rossiter started out with a first bookshop in Ross-on-Wye in 2010, adding a second branch 18 months later in Monmouth, south Wales. Andy Rossiter previously worked for Waterstone's for 20 years, managing branches in in Manchester Deansgate, Plymouth, Portsmouth and Cardiff. The new store is based on a cobbled street, Drapers Lane, in the centre of the market town, and is slightly smaller than the other two bookshops, at 600 sq ft. It will stock a mix of fiction and non-fiction with around a third of the shop devoted to children’s books. The shop will also aim to run around 20 events over the next year, working up to more in subsequent years, with around five part-time staff members already recruited. Rossiter and his wife will also spend considerable time in the shop which is less than an hour’s drive from their house.

There has not been an independent bookstore in the centre of Leominster for six or seven years, since Border Books closed down.

Andy Rossiter said: “We’ve had really good feedback – lots of people popping their heads in to see what was going on and saying they’ll be grateful to have a bookstore there again. It was previously a homeware store and if you look at black and white pictures from a century ago, it was a newsagent. The building itself must be hundreds of years old.”

“It will be similar to our Ross-on-Wye store but we will use more external venues for events – there’s an arthouse cinema and chapel which we’re keen to use.”

Rossiter revealed that he had refurbished the shop considerably. “We needed to bring it up to spec, it was a very old building with wonky aspects to it which make shelving difficult.”

The store is due to open on August 18th with an opening ceremony featuring author Deborah Moggach, as well as “possibly a Gruffalo or Peter Rabbit costume”.